immigrant experience

Ilo Ilo – Help Out A Dysfuntional Family in Singapore

Ilo Ilo Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

Follow a 28 year old Filipino maid as she starts work for a dysfunctional family in Singapore. They all have their problems and bad habits, but they’re all human, just like us. Ilo Ilo perfectly captures the up and down emotions of everyday life in this family’s home and the immigrant experience in Singapore.

From: Singapore, Asia
Watch: Trailer, Tubi, Kanopy, Rent on Amazon, Buy on Amazon
Next: Roma, Scent of Green Papaya, Shoplifters

The Clash – Spain/Latin American Competition – SBIFF

Roberto, an 18 year old boy, joins his father in Montreal to escape the violence in Peru. His father, now Bob Montoya, fled Peru a few years earlier and now lives with his Canadian wife and daughter. The Clash shows both the culture clash for Roberto and the macho clash with his now Canadian father. It plays out a bit like a Martin Rejtman film in which the oddball humour has been switched out for a tense underlying machismo.

The arrival of Roberto is a challenge to Bob’s male pride. We don’t know how much of a success Bob was in Peru, but he’s desperate to present himself as a success story in Canada. Roberto obviously knows where he came from in Peru so Bob wants to show him how far he’s come. Roberto is the medium for Bob to prove himself to people back in Peru.

In order to maintain his image, he tries to sell how great Canada is to his son. He keeps telling him it’s a place where you can be anything, a place where you can make lots of money. He portrays himself as a businessman that is one step away from the next big deal with a nice house and a nice car. However, the house, the car, and his suit are all for show. The nice house and car that he ‘owns’ are really his wife’s and his suit is just a image that covers up the debts he’s incurring.

Like Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite, Bob Montoya resorts to machismo to present himself as a big man. Whilst he’s grateful to have his son with him – as it’s a chance to prove to someone he’s achieved the American dream – he also sees him as a challenge to his masculinity. He’s a new male figure in the house that takes some of his wife’s and mistress’ attention away from him.

Their relationship fits Freud’s Oedipus complex theory. Bob is the father figure that dominates the household. Roberto is the son that reluctantly lives within the rules his father sets. They rarely talk beyond a few awkward words as Roberto lives in silence. Bob asserts his male dominance over Roberto by kissing his wife and his mistress in front of his son. In contrast, Roberto has fantasies of hooking up with his father’s mistress. In a final awkward party, Roberto battles his father for a dance with his mistress. It’s only in the club when he’s drunk that he can overcome his ‘castration anxiety‘. However, his father never allows her to dance with him in order to preserve his position as the alpha male.

The Clash is a brilliantly awkward film about a father and his son battling to prove their masculinity in a place foreign to the both of them.

Coming From Insanity – Pan African Film Festival 2020

In Coming from Insanity a poor Togolese house boy becomes a rich counterfeiter in Nigeria. It’s a well-made rags to riches heist thriller that will keep you engaged throughout.

The film starts with Kossi being trafficked across the Nigerian border from Togo in the 1990’s. He’s only 12 when he arrives, but he’s already forced to work as a house boy for an upper-middle class family living in Lagos. Fast forward to the present day and Kossi is still stuck in the same position; slaving away for the well-off family he grew up working for. They don’t care about his dreams, and without an education he’s unlikely to reach them. As far as they’re aware, he’ll always be beneath them.

Fed up with being downtrodden, Kossi resorts to crime. He uses his inventiveness to start counterfeiting dollars and soon becomes the best counterfeiter in Lagos. He slowly scales up his operations like Breaking Bad, employing a cast of people like him to help run his business. However, with a larger operation Kossi picks up the unwanted attention of a determined police agent, sparking a Catch Me If You Can style chase which thrillingly carries this film to the end.

If anything, Coming from Insanity is a testament the production quality of Nollywood. Compared to many of the lower budget productions that featured at the Pan African Film Festival, Coming from Insanity feels like a tent-pole Hollywood film. It stands out because of the following:

It features a cast of established names that have all gained acting experience from previous Nollywood productions instead of an amateur cast.
It has a substantial production budget allowing the crew to effectively film a diverse range of challenging scenes taking place in a very busy city (Lagos), as well as at sea and on the road.
As well as a lot of time spent in post-production that:
- Evened out the sound levels throughout the film.
- Matched the images on screen to a soundtrack with the same tone.
- Edited the shots together to efficiently tell a story without losing the attention of the viewer.

These are all things that we take for granted when watching films from countries with established film industries, such as the U.S, India, and Nigeria. They have the backing of an industry with the capabilities and experience needed for film-makers to make a great looking film, something that other African countries simply don’t have. That’s why Coming from Insanity feels so much more polished than films like Gonarezhou: The Movie and My Village. It has the backing of an industry with the capabilities and experience to make a great film.

That being said, industry backing isn’t everything, as we’ve seen from a number of big budget Hollywood flops in the last few years. Luckily, Coming from Insanity isn’t one of those, it’s polished look only helps it’s tight script to succeed.

Head to our Pan African Film Festival Hub for more reviews from PAFF 2020.

Onye Ozi – A Nollywood Comedy Based in London

Onye Ozi Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

This Nigerian film won awards at Nollywood for its celebration of the Igbo Language. Although I thought it was a bit too much like a cheesy telenovela, it has inspired me to search for Nigeria’s best films.

From: Nigeria, Africa
Watch: Trailer, IMDb
Next: Akasha, October 1, I Am Not A Witch

Farewell Amor – AFI Fest 2020

Farewell Amor follows a father reunited with his wife and daughter after 17 years living apart. It starts with their reunion in New York airport and then splits into three parts to replay each of their experiences of their first few days back together. This allows us to see each of their perspectives in order to understand each of them better. Whilst each of them see things differently, they all highlight the struggle of living together after a long time apart.

Their first few days together feels pretty awkward. There’s a clash of cultures between Walter and Esther, the reunited couple. Walter has become accustomed to U.S. culture after 17 years living in New York. He’s created a new life for himself with the immigrant community around him. By contrast, Esther hasn’t had the privilege of officially starting a new life, as she’s been waiting for her U.S. visa. To perhaps deal with the struggle and uncertainty of their long distance relationship, she has found peace and happiness in becoming a stronger christian. Their different paths have caused Esther to become more strict and passive whilst Walter has become accustomed to a more free and open way of life in the U.S. It’s shown in the treatment of Sylvia (their daughter) and in what they do in their free time: Walter dances whilst Esther cleans and shops. They’ve each grown apart over time.

However, the tone of the movie makes it feel like their differences can be worked out. Instead of emphasizing the drama in their new conflicting personalities, Farewell Amor uses a relaxed pace to give time for us to get to see each character through their own eyes. It makes it feel like the characters, like us, can see both sides of each other. That whilst they’re all struggling to adjust to their new lives together, they all know they’ve been through the hardest part and just need to persevere to make things work.

It’s a refreshing American made film about the African experience that focuses on family relationships instead of the usual war driven (Beasts of No Nation) and exceptional African (Mandela films, Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Queen of Katwe) narratives.

Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.